


light enters through open wounds

by justicarwrites



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:34:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justicarwrites/pseuds/justicarwrites
Summary: Freya spends her life with fear as her sole companion. Falling in love inspires her to release that cruel familiarity.or: the one of monsters and the ways to deal with them.





	light enters through open wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, this one's another exploration of Freya, her healing process, and how Keelin has helped her through it. It's sort of heavy though, so be wary if discussion of abuse and brief mentions of suicide ideation are triggering for you.
> 
> Let me know what you think! I love getting feedback. Thank you for reading!

As a child, Freya's nightmares consisted of monsters emerging from darkness. She feared eyes the color of blood, claws as sharp and lethal as her father's best hunting knife, and hypnotizing calls that could lure unsuspecting young ones away from the gentle embraces of their mothers.   
  
At age four, what monsters she knew could be easily combatted, armed by knowledge of her father's fierceness in battle and his devotion to protecting her. Her fears could be assuaged by the soft lilt to Mama's voice as she sang her songs. Her nightmares were simple and their solutions simpler.   
  
She was younger than most when she became aware that monsters are people and darkness comes from within them.    
  
The monsters of her childhood were slain or forgotten or replaced by those much more evil, complex, and frightening.    
  
Her new monster had a name and asked Freya to call her "family".   
  
This new monster cut her open to take what she wanted, and then asked her to be grateful for providing a dirty bandage for the gaping wounds. The slow-acting maliciousness and manipulation made self-doubt a near-perpetual state of existence.   
  
This new monster infected every ounce of her being, directing the hatred she harbored inwards just as much as it was outwards. Freya stopped being able to tell if the inner voice criticizing her failures, taunting her with admonishments of her selfishness and ingratitude was her own or another's.   
  
This new monster pushed her power to limits long past what her body could handle. Blood would seep from her tear ducts and nose, excruciating pain would threaten to capsize her skull and she'd be instructed to continue else she forfeit meals and have to start the spell anew. It was all justified as exercises in controlling her powers.   
  
This new monster made her nightmares indistinguishable from her reality. Where before she could find respite in the daylight from all that haunted her, there was no more freedom to be found with consciousness. Her most cherished fantasies were those in which she found the means to end her own life, as she'd grown so desperate that death was a release she no longer feared.    
  
Freya's living nightmare grew so embedded within her reality that she couldn't escape it even after she managed to flee.    
  
While most dream of what could happen, or what's far removed from the realm of possibility, her darkest nights consisted of waking up unable to get enough air in her lungs, sweating and chilled at the same time, and plagued with an uncontrollable urge to scrub the floor until her palms bled, haunted by memories of all that did happen. She dreamt of the abuse. Of Mathias' death. Of the loss of her son.   
  
Her monsters were those that manifested in her own mind, and she found that kind the most difficult to shake.    
  
As a woman on the run, Freya feared recapture, and the perpetual loneliness of never truly knowing family, an ideal she invested so much of her hopes into that it became her only method of coping.   
  
Finding her siblings marked a change in her, and an evolution in all she feared. Freya finally knew family, knew what it was to fight side-by-side with loved ones against all that threatened them.    
  
Monsters were once again simple, they were any who sought to take away the sense of belonging she'd found in "always and forever". And, perhaps more importantly, they were monsters Freya had some sense of control in dealing with. Dahlia was too powerful a captor to contend with as a frightened and heartbroken child and as a traumatized young woman, and her inner demons were woven too deeply into wounds too raw to properly handle.    
  
But foes hellbent on the destruction of her family?    
  
Those Freya could engage head on.   
  
Her devotion to her family was boundless, her dedication to their safety endless, and her willingness to do whatever it took to preserve what they had remained uninterrupted.    
  
As a woman with people she needed protect, and fear of nothing but harm to those she loved, Freya became the monster.    
  
Perhaps her history desensitized her to acts of evil.    
  
Perhaps her blind loyalty sprang from none being shown to her by her own mother all those years ago.    
  
Perhaps Dahlia ruined her irreparably, damaging whatever light and innocence and genuine human goodness she once possessed.    
  
Or perhaps she was selfish and cold by nature.   
  
She didn't care enough to dwell on the possibilities.   
  
Not until Keelin.   
  
It was then that possibility began to terrify her. She was afraid of letting them mean something, be something. She was afraid of needing someone she didn't deserve.   
  
For whatever reason, Keelin saw something in her that Freya still had doubts was really there.    
  
She wanted to prove her right. She wanted to heal, to be a better person.   
  
She was afraid that after a thousand years, she no longer had the ability to change.   
  
But those fears, and all fear she'd ever experienced in her life, paled in comparison to her fear that harm would come to Keelin because she loved her.   
  
That recurring nightmare threatened to consume her, to rip her insides into pieces while forcing her body to remain whole.    
  
The visions conjured by the Hollow were painfully spot-on and intimately familiar. Her deepest insecurities were uttered aloud, the source of her terror given a physical body. Everything about the encounter picked at ugly emotional scars, new and old, and it took all she had not to give in and let the pain and the doubt overtake her.   
  
These were nightmares that wouldn't go away simply. They manifested out of centuries of lessons no one should have to endure, and could not be cast away even after the danger was seemingly a thing of the past.   
  
As a woman who'd found the love of her life, she feared more now than ever. The monsters she had to contend with were seas of little things apt to drown her, filling her lungs, her veins, and her heart with a cold emptiness that could someday freeze her solid.   
  
But, for the first time in Freya's life, it was not a fear she had to face alone.   
  
On nights her dreams were particularly daunting, her stirring woke Keelin. No matter the hour, no matter how little sleep the ER doctor got because of her shifts at the clinic, she was ever-willing to provide Freya with what she needed in those moments. Be it words of comfort and reassurance, an attentive ear, a distraction, or quiet companionship through nights she couldn't manage to coax herself back to sleep, Keelin was responsive and accommodating.   
  
Keelin had fears too, they talked about them extensively because for some reason feeling safe with someone makes one shockingly forthcoming with details of their every weakness. She was afraid of becoming subject to her biology, of hurting people by mistake, of failing to forge an identity different from that of her family, and of losing Freya.   
  
She could sympathize with all of that.   
  
She admired Keelin deeply because she knew how heavy fears like those could weigh on someone. That she lived her life managing everything she felt so gracefully was a constant source of wonder for Freya.   
  
As she stared out into the well-lit street below one night after her first nightmare in almost a year, still filled with carefree passersby despite the late hour, she wondered whether or not she would ever have the opportunity to experience life as if unburdened, or if she'd ever reach the degree of emotional adjustment possessed by her lover.   
  
She considered that her life might be unrecognizable to her if either of those were to come to pass.   
  
When you've spent your entire life afraid, fear is not an easy thing to let go of. It becomes a cruel comfort, a constant companion. It's something familiar in a world of unknowns, a mechanism that keeps you safe because it reminds you that you are in danger, always.   
  
Fear is the monster that will convince you that it alone is harmless.   
  
And she wasn't sure of what else there was to believe in if not all she'd known to be true for centuries.   
  
Two arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and she felt tension she didn't know she was holding ease out of her body. She intertwined her fingers with Keelin's and leaned back into her, exhaling away thoughts of self-sabotage with the reminder that she was building something beautiful here that she wanted to hold onto more than all she'd known before love.   
  
"You know I hate it when you sneak out of bed like that." The gentle scolding was accompanied by lips pressed against the space between her neck and her shoulder.   
  
"I didn't want to wake you."   
  
"I don't mind."   
  
Freya squeezed Keelin's hands and gave her a tiny smile she probably barely saw under the light of the moon coming through the window, "I know."   
  
"Bad dream?"   
  
Keelin could tell because she always could. Freya never had any hope of obscuring her feelings, no matter how hard she tried, Keelin figured it out as easily as she would have if Freya was broadcasting them to the whole city. She joked once that her wolf senses let her tune in to the whirring going on in Freya's mind, and another time that diagnosis is kind of what she does for a living and not being able to tell when her girlfriend was upset wouldn't bode well for her patients.   
  
Freya suspected it was all just a part of truly being known for the first time.   
  
"Yeah." The answer was unnecessary, but she'd been practicing with giving voice to even thoughts she felt didn't matter.   
  
"Can I help?"   
  
A smile spread across her face and she forgot the details of the nightmare that drove her to that moment. She looked down to their hands clasped in front of her, released them, and spun in her arms to look at her.   
  
She could only just make out the faintest  signs of worry touching her features: the creased brow and eyes moving back and forth, up and down, to discern even the slightest indication of distress.   
  
"You already have."    
  
Freya dipped to press a kiss of gratitude and reassurance against Keelin's lips. She let the moment linger, relishing in the steady embrace. Her fingers traced the underside of Keelin's jaw as she pulled away just enough to speak, keeping her eyes closed and resting her forehead against the other woman's.   
  
"Go back to sleep," she whispered, almost as if speaking too loudly would stir the Sun and bring the end of what little night they had left, "I'll be there in a minute."   
  
Keelin pulled back slightly, trying to read whatever truth was written in her expression, "are you sure?"   
  
"I'll be okay."   
  
_ I'll be okay. _ .   
  
Never one to push, Keelin accepted that with a smile and a nod.   
  
She said "I know you will" and it sounded like "I love you".   
  
After a quick goodnight kiss, Keelin settled back into bed, and Freya turned again towards the window to reflect on that mantra a moment longer.   
  
_ I'll be okay _ __  
__  
_ I'll be okay _ __  
__  
__ I'll be okay   
  
She couldn't help either the tear or the smile that came with the realization that, for the first time, her fears didn't stop her from believing in those words.   
  
Years later, "okay" was an understatement.   
  
Years later, her monsters acted as reminders of where she came from instead of warnings that foretold what her future had to offer.   
  
Years later, even her most complicated fears felt like simple things she had the proper tools to navigate.   
  
Years later, their child was born, and Freya made silent vows as she watched him sleep.   
  
As a mother, Freya promised that in his childhood, he would know only of little monsters that came from darkness and could be forgotten with the gentle lilt of her voice in song, and she swore that when the time came for him to learn of fears more difficult to contend with, he would not be alone.   


**Author's Note:**

> find me @maggiesawyer on tumblr or @freyamikaclson on twitter :)


End file.
